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Keepin' my noggin NAKED for another year

In 2011, I joined the Angels Without Wings team as volunteer, I started off by crying a WHOLE lot…. then I baked cake, then I designed a few things, a I tried my hand at raising some funds. And while it is hard because we are in our baby shoes as an organisation and because my marketing qualification is null and void cos we have no marketing budget… we have shows so much growth. In 2011 we paid out just short of R180 000 in medical bills, this year we have grown so much! On 4 September we already stood on a payout amount of R329 000!!! Yet somehow as our income has grown so has the demand!

On a daily basis we are confronted with the overwhelming need for support and the lack of funds. While we would love to make more use of the public health system, the current state of the hospitals makes it impossible to expect of our families to rely on this form of health care and this too is putting more pressure on us and on our families.

On 22 October 2011 (on bandana day,) I shaved my head and vowed to keep it shaved for one year…. and as that year draws to a close, I look back on year where I attended social functions, braais, family functions, awards ceremonies, fundraisers, even the funeral of a family member…. all with NO hair. During these I endured dirty looks, weird assumptions, many sermons that women can not be without hair. Friends and family have seem to grow more impatient than me for the last shave to arrive…..

BUT I also saw the appreciation in the eyes of survivors, how touched they were that I attempted to understand their battle. And in hind sight, being hairless is nothing compared to having your your cells killed off by radiation or compared to having poison pumped into your veins in an attempt to kill the killer inside your body!

I also look back on a year of learning about how cruel and insensitive people can be towards cancer patients. I had people speculate about the type of cancer I had, based on my skin colour, while standing at the pay point at my local supermarket.

I look back at a year of getting super cold in the winter, a year of getting super sunburnt cos I forgot my hat at home… and I look back at a year of wishing I could just once have enough hair to blow wave, or to colour… and yet at the end of this year I can not help but feel that one year was not enough!

Many of the children whom we support at Angels Without Wings go through treatment for months and years on end. Bianca has gone through 2 consecutive brain surgeries and is busy with her second set of chemo therapy!

And compared to that… compared to their suffering and their longing for a normal life 1 year seems just sooo little!!!

So hear I go again. I am keeping my noggin naked for another 12 months!!! Please donate towards this projects and make it well worth my while to miss my hair for another year!